ADDRESS 


WILLIAM D. MELTON 

of COLUMBIA. S. C. 


President of the South Carolina 
Bar Association 


DELIVERED IN THE HALL OF THE HOUSE OF 
REPRESENTATIVES, IN THE CITY OF COLUM¬ 
BIA. ON THE 27TH DAY OF JANUARY. 1921. 


OUR COUNTRY 

ITS FOUNDATIONS. ITS PROBLEMS AND ITS FUTURE 


ADDRESS 


WILLIAM D. MELTON 

* * 

COLUMBIA. S. C. 


President of the South Carolina 
Bar Association 


DELIVERED IN THE HALL OF THE HOUSE OF 
REPRESENTATIVES, IN THE CITY OF COLUM¬ 
BIA, ON THE 27TH DAY OF JANUARY, 1921. 

> 

) d 

4) w 
> ) ^ 


"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue f It is the greatest of all 
possible evils; for it is folly, vice and madness, without tuition or restraint.”—B urke. 




s 


I .» 


I 





r 



' ' ^ Vtf ': ': 


/.«(■ -’p-tw r. ’"/ 

. > !. : / .• ‘ ' .■• • 
f ' ' '?*■**»’ , I " 

f ■ ''I .V ■ r‘ 


'.y',=.ii-e 0 j. . . >■ , ..' _ 



t 



\ 


ny 'rmopf«r 

JUN 1 1921 



« 

< 



C 

c 




' I; 


J 


1 

■ 1 


>5 


< j 
■ • 1 





• ^. 

. I 


« 









Address 


I am going to speak to you of our country—its foundations, 
its problems and its future. 

The wisest teacher who ever taught, in concluding the most 
wonderful discourse ever heard by man, urged his hearers to 
build their houses upon rocks. The former Campanile that 
stood in the Square of St. Mark’s in Venice, a tower of great 
strength and architectural symmetry and beauty, the pride of 
the Venetians, fell because its foundations were laid in the 
sand; and great was its fall. The national monument in 
Washington, built of granite and of stones contributed by 
the various States of the Union, the highest monument of 
its kind in the world, has withstood the weather and storms 
of years and stands today as it will ever continue to stand 
throughout all time—grand, beautiful, majestic, emblematic 
in its strength and firmness of our great country—because its 
foundations are built and imbedded deeply in cement and 
stone. The wise and prudent mariner, caught in a rough and 
angry sea, looks back to the point whence he began his voyage 
in order that he may with certainty guide his craft into a 
haven of safety. And so I am going to take you back to the 
foundations of our government, to the point whence we started, 
in order that we may more clearly see our way in these times 
of stress and strain. 

It was on Friday, the 25th day of May, 1787, that the con¬ 
vention which framed our Constitution met in the State House 
in the City of Philadelphia, the same house, though not the 
same hall, in which the Declaration of Independence had been 
adopted eleven years before. George III was still on the 
throne of England. Louis XVI was King of France. Cath¬ 
erine, the Great, was Empress of Russia. Joseph II was 
Emperor of Austria. Frederick the Great had been dead 
barely a year. Napoleon Bonaparte was an obscure young 


3 



lieutenant of artillery in the French Army. The fires of the 
French Revolution were burning, almost ready to burst into 
flames and fury and horror. Our Revolution had been suc¬ 
cessfully ended and peace had been made with Great Britain. 
The individual State governments were proving fairly satis¬ 
factory, but the Union was not functioning properly. 

The convention was composed of distinguished men in every 
way equipped for the work in hand. They were all men of 
learning and experience, great intellectually and morally, and 
altogether competent for the making of the constitution of a 
great nation, as time has proved. Character, courage and 
patriotism were predominant, distinguishing and common 
characteristics among them. George Washington, then fifty- 
five years of age, was a deputy from Virginia and President 
of the convention. ‘‘No nobler name ever stood in the fore¬ 
front of a nation's life." Edmund Randolph, then Governor, 
James Madison, afterwards President, George Wythe and 
George Mason were also deputies from Virginia. Patrick 
Henry was also elected but declined to serve. When asked 
why, he is reported to have said, “I smel't a rat." Our fore¬ 
fathers had the same “nigger in the woodpile" that we have 
today. South Carolina had four deputies, namely, John Rut¬ 
ledge, then approaching fifty years of age, Charles Pinckney, 
then twenty-nine, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, his cousin, 
nearly ten years older, and Pierce Butler, about forty-five 
years of age. The convention also numbered among its mem¬ 
bers Alexander Hamilton of New York, described as “one of 
the smallest men physically and one of the biggest intel¬ 
lectually," Gouverneur Morris, of Pennsylvania, whose “crip¬ 
pled arm and wooden leg might detract from his personal ap¬ 
pearance but could not suppress his spirit," James Wilson, 
also of Pennsylvania, John Dickinson of Delaware, Oliver 
Ellsworth of Connecticut, Robert Morris, of New York, and 
many other distinguished men. Benjamin Franklin was added 
as a Pennsylvania deputy but at eighty-one years of age his 
powers were failing. Neither John Adams nor Thomas Jeffer¬ 
son were members of the convention. John Adams was then 
Minister to England and Thomas Jefferson, Minister to France. 
The average age of the members was forty-two, and although 
one-sixth of their number were foreign born, most of them had 
played important parts in the drama of the Revolution. The 


4 


Puritans were there from Plymouth Rock and Massachusetts 
Bay, the Dutch from New Amsterdam, the Swedes from Dela¬ 
ware, the Quakers from Pennsylvania, the Cavaliers from 
Virginia and South Carolina, and the Scotch-Irish from Penn¬ 
sylvania and the Carolinas—all the nations which had 
contributed to the melting pot of America were there 
in the persons of their representatives. There were Puri¬ 
tans and Quakers and Presbyterians and Huguenots and 
Catholics, all contributing their best thought and ideas. No 
assembly of men could have been more representative and com¬ 
plete. When Thomas Jefferson heard the names of the mem¬ 
bers in Paris he wrote to John Adams, who was then in Lon¬ 
don : ‘Tt really is an assembly of demi-gods.” And this is the 
verdict of posterity. 

Guided by the principles of liberty and justice, and their own 
experiences, inspired by the writings of Montesquieu and 
Rousseau whose books were very much read at the time, but 
without precedent or analogy—for there was neither prece¬ 
dent nor analogy in the history of Greece or Rome, or feudal 
Europe—^these great men, our forefathers, went faithfully 
to work at their task. Madison asserted and Hamilton re¬ 
peated after him that ‘They were now to decide forever the 
fate of Republican governmentand Gouverneur Morris said, 
“The whole human race will be affected by the proceedings of 
this convention.’’ 

Hamilton wanted a strong centralized government some¬ 
what similar to a monarchy. Madison and the Virginia dele¬ 
gates wanted a democratic government. Three plans were 
submitted to the convention: The Virginia plan, principally 
the work of Madison, was presented by Governor Randolph 
of Virginia; a second plan was presented by Charles Pincknby 
of South Carolina, and a third, the New Jersey plan, was pre¬ 
sented by the deputies from New Jersey. The debate was 
long and at times acrimonious. Washington, who presided, 
but took no part in the debate, growing apprehensive of the 
result, at one time expressed himself thus: 

“It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. 
Perhaps another conflict is to be sustained. If to please the 
people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we 
afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to 
which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the 
hand of God.” 


5 


And so the event proved. Almost at the moment when 
Edmund Burke was writing that “human institutions must 
grow unconsciously and cannot be constructed/^ our fore¬ 
fathers were framing a constitution and laying the founda¬ 
tions of a government which has proved the most stable and 
successful in history. Although fresh from the blood and 
carnage of the Revolution they laid no desecrating hands upon 
the rights and liberties of their fellow-men, and builded their 
constitution upon the principles and precepts of fraternity 
and equality before the law. In the product of their thoughts 
and deliberations they combined with their learning and ex¬ 
perience all that was good in the past and all that was good 
in the various peoples who had commingled in the making of 
America. From their own traditions and laws and customs; 
from the principles of the Declaration of Independence; 
from the English Revolution and the Bill of Rights; from the 
Magna Charta and the rights wrung from King John at Runny- 
mede; from the writings of Montesquieu and Rousseau; from 
the laws of Greece and Rome; from the inquisitions and per¬ 
secutions of Europe; from the blood of the martyrs and the 
light of the reformation; from the teachings of the Scriptures; 
from the sorrow and suffering of mankind everywhere in 
every land and clime: they perfected the foundation of our 
government and cemented it with human hearts and human 
souls; and upon it they raised a standard like unto that 
standard raised on Golgotha, by God Himself, nearly two 
thousand years ago, a standard of liberty and righteousness 
and justice and truth. 

Mr. Gladstone said of it that just “as the British Constitu¬ 
tion is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from 
progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most 
wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain 
and purpose of man;'' and Ex-President Taft, very recently 
in speaking of the guaranties provided in the Constitution for 
the liberty of our citizens and the protection of their property, 
expressed “firm faith that it is built to weather all storms and 
will survive the present era of unrest," and sees in the Consti¬ 
tution “a guaranty of future progress and the extension and 
perpetuation of Christian civilization." 

Yet the people were by no means unanimous either as to its 
adoption by the convention or its ratification by the States. 


6 


It was referred to as a ‘‘bundle of compromises,” and so it 
was, but compromises of the right sort; and John Quincy 
Adams referred to it as having been “extorted from the grind¬ 
ing necessity of a reluctant nation.” In South Carolina rati¬ 
fication was bitterly and vigorously opposed by Rawlins Lown¬ 
des, who is reported to have said in closing the debate “that 
he saw dangers in the proposed government so great that he 
could wish, when dead, for no other epitaph than this: ‘Here 
lies the man that opposed the Constitution because it was 
ruinous to the liberty of America'.” It is also said that he 
lived to find this epitaph a false prophecy. 

There are some today who refer to the Constitution as anti¬ 
quated and out of date. I read an editorial in a recent issue 
of the New York World, in which it is referred to as an “ox¬ 
cart undertaking to do the work of an automobile truck.” No 
one has ever claimed that it was of divine origin or absolutely 
perfect. It has never been within the power of human beings 
at a single sweep of the eye to foresee all the contingencies of 
the future. Soon after its ratification it became necessary 
to amend it by adding the Bill of Rights as the first amend¬ 
ment. In all, nineteen amendments have been made, and it 
can and must be amended again from time to time to meet 
the exigencies of progress. It is a practical constitution made 
for practical purposes. Others complain that it has been mis¬ 
interpreted and misconstrued by the courts; and so it has been, 
and so it will ever continue to be misinterpreted and miscon¬ 
strued as long as it is human to err. But it has stood the test 
of time for nearly one hundred and thirty-four years (since 
17 September, 1787), and stands today as the great bulwark 
of our liberties. 

There is a tradition that when Thomas Jefferson returned 
to the United States a year or so after the adoption of the 
Constitution he protested to Washington against the establish¬ 
ment of two houses in the legislative branch. The incident is 
said to have occurred while the two were at breakfast, and 
Washington asked Jefferson, “Why did you pour that coffee 
into your saucer?” “To cool it,” replied Jefferson. “Even 
so,” said Washington, “we pour legislation into the senatorial 
saucer to cool it.” I wondered when reading this incident 
whether Jefferson also ate his rice with a knife. 

Dry leaves of history, all this, some of you may say, and yet 
out of these dry leaves, laden with frankincense and myrrh 


7 


and spices, there has risen like the phoenix of Heliopolis, the 
greatest government and the greatest nation the world has 
ever known. 

Since the adoption of the Constitution our life as a people 
has been a life of long continued and ever increasing prosperity 
and of comparative peace and happiness. While other nations 
have been rent and torn by wars and revolutions our afflic¬ 
tions of this sort have been few. The war of 1812, the Mexi¬ 
can War, and the Spanish-American War can hardly be digni¬ 
fied by the name of wars. They were but ripples on the bosom 
of a placid sea; but our War Between the States arising from 
the construction of the rights of the States under this same 
Constitution rent us almost in twain. Valuing our peace and 
happiness we were slow to take part in the World War. Some 
of us knew from the beginning that we must take part and 
were impatient at the delay; but the great mass of the people 
had to be educated and convinced that righteousness and jus¬ 
tice and truth were being attacked and that the liberty of the 
entire human race was at stake. We were never 'Too proud 
to fight,'’ never afraid, and now that we can contemplate this 
great war in the retrospect, how glorious is the thought that 
in that moment of supreme tragedy our country and our peo¬ 
ple almost to the man rose sublime and esteemed it a privilege 
and an honor to contribute our treasure and our lives for the 
preservation of the principles upon which we had built and 
maintained our nation. 

And in this great cataclysm of the nations of the earth. 
South Carolina played her part and played it bravely and well. 
Though one of the smallest States, South Carolina, contributed 
53,482 men, or 1.42 per cent, of the men enlisted; and it is 
worthy of note that of the 52 Congressional Medals awarded 
for the highest degree of coolness and bravery, the most highly 
prized of all the medals, six of these medals, or twelve per 
cent, of the entire number awarded, went to South Carolinians. 
No other State received more than three. There were South 
Carolinians at Chateau-Thierry, there were South Carolinians 
at Belleau Wood and in the Argonne, and there were South 
Carolinians in great numbers in the Thirtieth Division when 
it broke the Hindenburg line. 

But it is not a part of my purpose to discuss the great war. 
Our arms were victorious. The armistice came at the eleventh 


hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year, 
1918. Millions of men and women gave their lives to the cause. 
Peace to their ashes! Millions in greater numbers, maimed 
and wounded, will carry their scars and wounds to the end 
of their days. Millions in still great numbers, numbers almost 
inconceivable, gave their time and service, some for months 
and some for years, disrupting their social, domestic and busi¬ 
ness relations. And now just as the greatest of all wars is 
ended so it has left in its wake the greatest problems the world 
has ever known, governmental, political, financial, social, do¬ 
mestic, industrial, moral, religious. It is of some of these prob¬ 
lems, in so far as they concern our country, that I wish to 
speak. 

The problem fraught with the most imminent danger to our 
peace and well-being lies in the spirit of unrest that seems to 
have taken possession of people everywhere. There were symp¬ 
toms of this uneasiness before the war. Society was not satis¬ 
fied with things as they had been. The classical and melo¬ 
dious music of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, of Wagner and 
Mozart, had to give way to rag-time and the music of the jazz- 
band; the stately minuet and graceful waltz had to be sup¬ 
planted by the camel-walk, the bunny-hug and the cheek-dance; 
the drama of Shakespeare and Moliere and Goethe had to give 
way to the moving picture show with its blood and thunder 
and thrills, and vaudeville with its indecent exposures and 
vulgar wit; the poor were becoming more and more envious 
of the rich, and more and more dissatisfied with their lot; 
labor and capital were at each others throats; strikes and 
lockouts were prevalent everywhere, even in public utilities; 
human rights were no longer respected and human life was 
becoming cheap; crime was open and rampant; even our sys¬ 
tem of government was under attack; and the whole world 
seemed out of joint. This spirit was in the workshop, in the 
office, in the factory, on the farm, in the home, in the air— 
everywhere. The war did not improve, it rather exaggerated 
these conditions. This spirit of the age manifested itself in 
various ways and took unto itself various forms and names. 
Some called it anarchy, some communism, in some parts of 
the United States it was called Syndicalism and the I. W. W., 
and in Russia, where it is most prevalent and has been most 
harmful and destructive, it took and bears the name of Bolshe¬ 
vism. q 


Let us for a moment examine this monster of iniquity, this 
arch-enemy of liberty and democracy. It has been briefly 
described by Lenine as the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” 
which in plainer language means the arbitrary government and 
oppression of the best and most enlightened classes of society 
by its lowest and most ignorant class. It is in no sense demo¬ 
cratic, for it requires a very strong centralized power and 
government to sustain it. Marx, upon whose teachings it is 
said to have been founded, ended his famous manifesto to the 
workmen of the world by saying “that they had nothing to 
lose through revolution except their chains,” and Lenine, the 
Russian dictator, has asserted time and again that it must and 
can only work out its ideals through carnage and bloody revo¬ 
lution. The word bolsheviki, means majority and yet in Rus¬ 
sia where alone it is in practical operation, according to 
Lenine’s own statement, one hundred and eighty millions of 
people are dominated by two hundred thousand “proletarians 
and poorest peasants”; for mark you not all peasants but only 
the poorest peasants are allowed to vote. The right of suffrage 
is denied to the bourgeoisie, whose destruction as a class the 
Bolsheviki hope to bring about. Only a few of those who 
work with their hands and the poorest peasants are allowed 
to vote. This great privilege is denied to “every merchant, 
from the keeper of a corner grocery store to the owner of a 
great mercantile establishment; every banker, every com¬ 
mission agent, every broker, every insurance agent, every real 
estate dealer, every farmer, or peasant, who hires help of any 
kind, even a single hand; every petty contractor, garage keeper, 
or other person employing any kind of hired help whatever, 
including the professional writer who hires a stenographer, 
the doctor who hires a chauffeur, and the dentist who hires 
a mechanic or assistant; every clergyman and minister of the 
Gospel; every person whose income is derived from inherited 
wealth or from invested earnings, including all who live upon 
annuities provided by gift or bequest; every person engaged in 
housekeeping for persons included in any of the foregoing, 
including the wives of such persons; all persons engaged in 
occupations which a competent tribunal decided to classify 
as non-essential and non-productive;” and to a great host of 
others too numerous to classify or mention. The right of 
suffrage is limited principally to the “poorest peasantry” and 
wage earners who work with their hands without hired help. 

10 


All others having the right must be engaged in public service 
of some sort. The right of property is absolutely abolished and 
so is money, the medium of exchange. The sacred ties of 
family and home are not recognized. Children are the wards 
of the State. Freedom of speech is suppressed. In the Pravda, 
their official organ, not long ago there appeared this statement: 
“The press is a most dangerous weapon in the hands of our 
enemies. We will tear it from them and we will reduce it 
to impotence * * * * We are going to smite the journals with 
fines, to shut them up, to arrest the editors, and hold them 
as hostages.'' In one of his proclamations Lenine says: “The 
present is the period for the destruction and crushing of 
the capitalistic system of the whole world. * * * * The new 
apparatus of government must express the dictatorship of the 
working class." And so on, ad nauseam. 

I need not tell you that in that land of unlimited man power, 
fifty-five per cent, of man power is lacking in the national 
industries; that production has decreased eighty per cent., and 
that sixty per cent, of the production is taken for the armies; 
nor need I tell you of the vast amount of poverty and suffering 
and misery which now afflicts that country so abundant in 
undeveloped wealth and so full of great possibilities. The Bol- 
sheviki have surpassed the Romanovs in the exercise of des¬ 
potic power and in cruel and pitiless oppression. 

Some will say Bolshevism is a failure in Russia and there is 
no longer any danger to us. You can make no greater mistake. 
Lenine and Trotsky are still in the saddle and some of the 
nations, unwisely as I think, are undertaking to establish trade 
relations with them. Others say it will never spread beyond 
Russia, but even if it does it can never find friendly soil in 
free America. Do you remember the great fire in Chicago 
same years ago, how it started from a lamp being kicked over 
by a cow in a shed and how it spread until the entire city 
was in ruins? Have you ever visualized a prairie fire—how 
it starts from a spark in some remote corner and how the 
conflagration spreads until it covers hundreds of acres and 
destroys everything in its path? Do you recall how the in¬ 
fluenza, starting from a microbe in Spain some years ago, 
covered the habitable earth and sent millions of men and 
women to their graves? These are familiar illustrations of 
how Bolshevism will spread if given the opportunity. Indeed 
the baleful spread of Bolshevism needs no illustration. Dur- 

11 


ing the war the Germans let Lenine and Trotsky loose upon 
the Russian army, with their Bolshevist propaganda, and the 
money to spread it, and the morale of that army, which for 
years had resisted shot and shell and charge and counter¬ 
charge, melted before it like mist before the rising sun. It 
sounds well and good to say that Bolshevism can never flourish 
in free America. It is here already. It is coming in through 
Mexico. It is coming in through the immigrants who are 
arrving daily by the thousand. You will find it in the bomb 
that was exploded in Wall Street some months ago. You will 
find it in the sabotage that is being wrought by the Syndicalists 
and I. W. W. throughout the country and especially in the 
West. You will find it in the crime wave unprecedented in 
daring and boldness that has spread over this country within 
the last year. The robber and the thief no longer find it 
necessary to use stealth and burglary to accomplish their ends 
but boldly hold up their victims in the crowded thorough¬ 
fares of the city in broad daylight, help themselves and escape. 
You will find it in a great many labor unions and other organi¬ 
zations ; and you will find it in the votes of over a million of our 
people who, in the last election, voted for Eugene V. Debs, 
a self-confessed convict, for President of the United States. 
There seems to be something seductive and fascinating about 
it to the laboring man, and to the ignorant and uninformed, 
something that attracts them to it. It is like the serpent which 
first charms and then devours its prey. To them 

'Tt is a monster with such frightful mien. 

As to be hated needs but to be seen; 

Yet seen too oft, familiar with its face. 

They first endure, then pity, then embrace.” 

Another problem which at this time is threatening and dis¬ 
turbing our peace is the problem of immigration. We have 
now in our midst something like twenty millions of foreign 
born, nearly one-fifth of our entire population, more than half 
of whom can neither read, write nor speak our language. A 
great many of them are responsible for the disturbances now 
so prevalent in the mining regions of the country; but they 
are scattered here and there all over the country, grouping 
themselves mainly in the larger cities, in the industrial centers 
and in the agricultural sections of the West. Unused to liberty, 

12 


obsessed and imbued with the ideas and tenets of the countries 
whence they came on account of persecution, oppression and 
intolerable conditions of one sort and another, they are the 
source of everlasting discontent and disorder. My idea is that 
these people ought to be educated and converted to our ideals 
if possible, and compelled to swear allegiance to our country 
and become citizens, or leave. We have ‘'room about our 
hearth for all mankind,"’ for the persecuted and oppressed of 
every nation everywhere, but we want no hyphenated Ameri¬ 
cans. 

But the end of the war has brought to us a new phase of the 
problem of the immigrant. We can, let us hope, by education 
and deportation deal satisfactorily with those who are here. 
It is those who wish to come that are now causing alarm. 
It is reported that more than fifteen millions are now ready 
and eagerly awaiting the means of transportation to come to 
America. This number may be and probably is an exaggera¬ 
tion, but the fact remains that the number of those wishing to 
come runs into the millions and that there are many more than 
our country needs or can assimilate or accommodate. It is 
of some consolation to reflect that there are not ships enough 
to bring so large a number within the next several years. This 
fact was demonstrated during the war in the effort to rush 
the American troops to European ports. With the general 
public denied the right of passage and all possible bottoms 
made available we were more than a year transporting two 
million troops using every particle of space possible for that 
purpose. 

What shall be the policy of the United States? Shall we 
deny them admittance to our shores for a term of years, or 
shall we restrict them? To deny admittance would not be 
in accordance with the policy of our free institutions, a policy 
which we have pursued and under which we have grown and 
prospered for more than a hundred years. It would be the 
policy of China, the policy of a dying civilization, the policy 
of stagnation and ultimate decay. It is said that Edmund 
Burke when a young man contemplated coming to America, 
and that Cromwell and Hampden as young men were actually 
on board ship for the purpose of coming and settling here. 
Carnegie, the great philanthropist, was an immigrant from 
Scotland; and so I might continue through a long list. We 
might deny admittance to some such men as these. Besides 

13 


we need some immigrants. We need the fresh infusion of blood 
that the immigration of the best in Europe affords, and at this 
time we can have the best if we will. We need immigrants on 
the farms, in the mines, and for the labor and drudgery which 
Americans will not do. You can^t get the American to do com¬ 
mon labor on the farms, to dig in the mines, or to do the com¬ 
mon drudgery of thousands of different sorts. In the South 
we use the negro for these purposes for the most part, but in 
the North and West where negroes are scarce it is absolutely 
necessary to use the immigrant. To deny admittance alto¬ 
gether, even for a limited time, therefore, is to stop the wheels 
of orderly work and progress. The solution lies in limiting 
the number to our needs and imposing the restrictions neces¬ 
sary to keep out the vicious and undesirable; and to enforce the 
laws rigidly in these respects. There never was any excuse 
for the admission of Trotsky, or of Emma Goldman, or of 
Martens, the self-styled Soviet Ambassador, or of de Valera, 
or of the new Mayor of Cork, who has just arrived to disturb 
our tranquility and peace. 

A question which concerns us greatly, as much perhaps as 
any other, is the labor problem. The laboring classes are so 
dissatisfied that they have become fertile fields for the work 
of anarchists, communists and the like. Strikes, lockouts, 
sabotage, the destruction of private property and the denial 
of private rights are but some of the manifestations of this 
distemper. The innocent third party, the general public, is 
either ignored or given scant consideration. There was a 
time when capital despoiled labor, but now the boot is on the 
other foot, for it is labor that is now undertaking to despoil 
capital. Who controls your street cars and railroads and 
mines and other public utilities—the stockholders and the 
bondholders, or the workmen? The United Mine Workers 
have declared that “the whole product of the mine belongs to 
the miners, and that those who contributed capital for its 
development should receive nothing,'' and this is typical of 
the attitude of many of the workers in public utilities. I am 
sincere in my desire to see that the workingman gets his share 
and his full share of the profits produced by him, and I am 
sincere in my belief that he has not always gotten all that 
belongs to him. To the laborer belongs and justly belongs a 
fair share of the product of his hands; but that does not mean 

14 


that capital is not also entitled to its share. In this world of 
many men and many minds and many kinds of people the 
policy of all should be to deal fairly and squarely with their 
fellow-men and live and let live. The ‘"square deal’" for all 
makes for human happiness. If disputes arise let them be 
solved, not by arbitrary and unreasonable demands, but by 
full and fair and temperate discussion. 

Capital in the mind of the average laboring man has come 
to be a word of opprobrium and contempt, a vile and venomous 
thing to be eschewed and spit upon and cast away. Yet capi¬ 
tal is but the combined wealth of all sorts of people, the poor, 
the widow and the orphan, the lame, the sick and the blind, 
of all those who cannot strive and labor, as well as of the 
indolent and rich and affluent. Capital and labor are twin 
brothers who should rise together with the morning sun, work 
together while there is yet daylight, and at evening lie down 
together in green pastures in love and harmony and peace. 

The first general strike recorded in history occurred nearly 
five hundred years before Christ when the plebeians of Rome 
retired to Mons Sacer and Menenius Agrippa prevailed upon 
them to return by relating his fable of the belly and its mem¬ 
bers. The hands and arms said they were tired of working 
and striving for the lazy, trifling, luxury-loving belly; the 
eyes said they were tired looking out for it and the legs and 
feet that they were tired of carrying it about; all the mem¬ 
bers revolted and seemed ready to throw the belly into the 
trash heap and desert it, until, taking counsel with the mind, 
they realized that the belly was after all the source and reser¬ 
voir of all their strength and activity and life. And so it is 
with capital—it is labor's reservoir. 

I rejoice in the fact that capital and labor seem to be com¬ 
ing to a better understanding and that an enlightened and 
strong public sentiment against strikes is showing a decided 
tendency toward the readjustment and settlement of their dif¬ 
ferences on principles of reason and justice in place of the 
arbitrary demands of labor leaders and professional agitators. 
I rejoice also in the decided tendency toward schemes of profit 
sharing as preventing differences which might otherwise arise. 
Labor organizations are necessary and desirable, but their 
members should not get their minds so full of the “motion is 
carried" and the like, as to make them forget the teachings of 
Him who said, “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." 

15 


There are two classes of people in our country who are 
intent on making trouble, the one with our neighboring country 
on the south, and the other with our neghboring country on 
the north. One of these classes is composed of people who 
have made investments in oil and other properties in Mexico 
which they wish to improve and exploit, and out of whibhj 
they hope to make tremendous fortunes. To the end that 
they may be protected in their work and that their dreams 
of untold wealth may be realized propaganda has been and is 
being generally and vigorously circulated, urging intervention 
on the grounds that American lives are being ruthlessly taken 
and that the property of American citizens is being illegally 
and unjustly confiscated; and that in any event the United 
States should intervene and take over the government of 
Mexico in the interest of the advancement of civilization. 
Greed and the desire to make money, the true motives for 
this propaganda, are kept in the background. A mere state¬ 
ment of the facts must stamp the cause of this class of our 
people with injustice and condemn it. We want to be friendly 
with Mexico because she is our neighbor and because she is 
the nearest of the Spanish-American nations protected by our 
Monroe Doctrine—a doctrine which the South American re¬ 
publics have been encouraged to view with grave suspicion 
as to its sincerity. A false step in the case of Mexico would 
everlastingly condemn us with them. Mexico, however, seems 
at this time to be working out her own salvation. 

The other class is composed of the “Friends of Irish Free¬ 
dom,” as they call themselves, urged on by the organization 
known as the Sinn Fein in the interest of the Independence of 
Ireland. Sinn Fein means “we, ourselves,” and recalls to one's 
mind the most selfish man in the world whose only prayer was 
“Oh Lord, bless me and my wife, and my son, John, and his 
wife, us four and no more.” From the extent of the propa¬ 
ganda and the amount of noise made by these “Friends of 
Irish Freedom” one would think the Irish one of the most 
numerous peoples of the earth. As a matter of fact Ireland 
has a population of a little over four million people, less in 
number than the States of North and South Carolina, and very 
much less than the single City of New York. Ireland was 
never a nation. From the time she emerged from tribal chaos 
she became and has since continued to be associated with 


16 


England and a part of Great Britain, as for her own security 
and happiness she ought to be. True she has always been the 
querulous member of the family and for the greater part of 
the time she has been disloyal, regarding England’s extremity 
as Ireland’s opportunity. In this respect I have considered 
Sinn Feinism as worse than Bolshevism—it has something 
of Absalom, something of Benedict Arnold, something of 
Judas Iscariot in it. The object and purpose of the present 
agitation is by working; on the ancient grudge, or grudges, 
which so many of our people have against Great Britain, to 
obtain recognition of Ireland as an independent nation and to 
that end to create a breach and disturb our present friendly 
relations to such an extent as ultimately to engage our active 
cooperation and support. 

If there were no other reason for denying our cooperation 
to the Sinn Feiners it would be a sufficient answer to say 
''it is none of our business.” I once knew a man who made 
a fortune by attending to his own business. Besides 
Ireland does not need independence of Great Britain. 
Ireland with independence of Great Britain would be like the 
little dog that runs barking and yelping after a locomotive— 
she wouldn’t know what to do with it if she got it. And 
Ireland does not really want independence of Great Britain. 
The thrifty, industrious, most enlightened and most stable 
part of Ireland, the Ulsterites, are open in their opposition 
to it, and the majority of the Irish people are not in sympathy 
with the demands or policies of the Sinn Feiners. 

Ireland is at this time the most prosperous country in 
Europe because of her lukewarm and tardy participation in 
the war, and has more freedom and more representation in gov¬ 
ernment than any country on the face of the earth. It is 
noteworthy that Ireland with her four millions of popula¬ 
tion returns forty-eight more members to Parliament than 
the County of London with its population of approximately 
eight millions. The officials in Ireland are Irish almost to a 
man, and would probably be Irish absolutely to a man but 
for the refusal of a great many Irish to accept office. There 
are more Irish officials in Great Britain than there are Eng¬ 
lish in Ireland. With a Welsh Prime Minister and a Scotch- 
Irish leader of the House, it is absurd for the Irish to assert 
that the government of Great Britain is altogether English. 
I was struck with the truth in the statement of a little actress 

17 


whom I saw and heard recently in a play in one of the New 
York theatres, that ‘‘The only contented Irishman she ever 
saw was a dead one.” 

A few months ago the Union Club, composed of American 
citizens, most of them old men as I am told, in celebrating the 
centenary of the arrival of the Pilgrims, used as decorations 
the flags of America, of France and of Great Britain. The 
“Friends of Irish Freedom” became enraged at the use of the 
British flag, undertook to tear it down by force, stoned the 
club, broke its windows and assaulted its members; and a 
priest in undertaking to quiet the mob and restore order had 
the effrontery to refer to America as “Greater Ireland.” The 
Irish will have their joke. The population of Ulster in their 
own chief city during the war had to listen to the Sinn Feiners 
rejoicing over German victories, and yet free American born 
citizens in their own land could not use the flag of one of 
their allies as a decoration. And it has perhaps not been for¬ 
gotten that during the war these same “Friends of Irish 
Freedom” assaulted and stoned American soldiers in Cork and 
Queenstown because they had gone over there to fight Ger¬ 
many. 

Great Britain is our mother country and our friend and 
ally. We are one in blood, one in family, one in language 
and religion, one in traditions and laws, and one in our ideals 
of human liberty and human rights. We have had our family 
quarrels, at times we have used harsh words towards each 
other, and on two occasions we have come to blows; but never¬ 
theless we have proven fast friends. Yet there are many 
among us who have shown a disposition to nurse our ancient 
grudges to keep them warm. Other nations and peoples jealous 
of our prosperity and envious and apprehensive of our power 
have with singular persistency seized upon this predisposition 
to keep the old wounds open and sore and if possible put us 
at each other's throats. Historians, even our own historians, 
have not all been fair to England. Some have not had the 
knowledge, some not the ability, and some, I dare say, not the 
desire to correct the evil propaganda that has been circulated. 
We have been told that before our Revolution, England over¬ 
taxed, oppressed and sought to enslave us, and during the 
Revolution sought to destroy and annihilate us, but we were 
not always told that George III was a German and demented, 
had a fake and pocket parliament, that the sympathy of such 

18 


Englishmen as Walpole and Pitt and Burke and Fox and of 
the English people generally was with us, that the English 
would not volunteer to fight the Americans, and that George 
III had to hire 30,000 Hessians, who were also Germans, to do 
the fighting for him. We were told that in the war of 1812 
England preyed upon our commerce and illegally impressed 
our sailors and seamen for her own service, how we beat the 
English at New Orleans, on Lake Erie and on the high seas, 
and how when the English captured Washington they burnt 
it like a lot of vandals; but we were not told that our “Gen¬ 
eral Hull began by invading Canada from Detroit and sur¬ 
rendered his whole army without firing a shot, that the Brit¬ 
ish overran Michigan, and parts of Ohio and Western New 
York, while we retreated,'" and that we ourselves had burned 
Toronto the year before the British burned Washington. We 
were told how President Monroe commanded the British and 
the whole of Europe to keep their hands off of American terri¬ 
tory and of how all of them obeyed, but we were not told of 
the pernicious doctrine and threatening attitude of the Holy 
Alliance as enunciated in the Articles written by Metternich, 
the Austrian Prime Minister, which sought the destruction 
of all democratic and representative governments, and that 
as a counter thereto the Monroe doctrine was suggested by 
George Canning, the British Prime Minister, to President 
Monroe, who promulgated it after consultation with Jeffer¬ 
son, then in retirement, and that it has had the support of 
the British navy from that day to this. 

In order by contrast to emphasize our grievances we were 
told of the valiant and heroic services of the French, of Lafay¬ 
ette and Rochambeau and de Grasse, but we were told little 
of the fact that France needed us as badly as we needed the 
French, and we were told little or nothing of the fact that 
directly after the Revolution the King of France was more 
hostile to us than England, or of how the French pirates a 
little later in 1797 and 1798 preyed upon our commerce, or of 
the conduct of Citizen Genet, envoy of the French Republic, 
whose recall Washington had to request. Nor were we told 
of the subsequent hostility of Napoleon and Talleyrand. I have 
no patience with the man who says now or said during the 
war “I love the French, but I am against the English." If 
such a man is not ignorant of history, or prejudiced, scrape 


19 


his skin and you will find German blood in his veins; and this 
will to a large extent account for his sentiments. 

I would not do the Irish the least injustice. I am myself of 
Scotch-Irish descent and am very proud of it. Nor would I 
take the least of credit or honor from the French for the as¬ 
sistance rendered by them in securing our independence and 
freedom. I have always loved the French and have always 
felt deeply grateful to them. No incident of history has 
touched me more than when General Pershing standing at 
the grave of Lafayette bared and bowed his head and said 
^‘Lafayette, we have come’^—words that will go down in his¬ 
tory. He expressed the sentiment of every true American. For 
once in the history of the world a debt of gratitude has been 
paid. But I stand for a square deal for England, our mother 
country, our faithful friend and ally. (Great applause.) Eng¬ 
land has been fair in her disputes with us as to boundaries and 
fisheries, she stood by us in the Venezuela dispute, she stood 
by us in Manila Bay, and she will stand by us again if the 
occasion arises. Think of what would have happened to us 
and to the world if the British fleet had gone down at Jutland 
or Scapa Flow. 

And yet strange as it may seem our country over-zealous 
in guarding the right of free speech permits and has for months 
permitted Eamon de Valera, President of the so-called Irish 
Republic, to come to this country and go from one end of it to 
the other spreading his pernicious propaganda and collecting 
millions of dollars for the furtherance of Sinn Feinism against 
England; permits the widow and brothers and sister of the 
late Mayor of Cork to do the same thing; and even permits 
the present Mayor of Cork, O’Callaghan, for the same pur¬ 
pose to violate our immigration laws and come in as a stowa¬ 
way without a passport. The authorities, it is true, are now 
telling O’Callaghan to return to Ireland, but that is very much 
like locking the stable after the horse is stolen. More than 
this, our country is now permitting a commission of one hun¬ 
dred, known as the Villard Commission, composed almost 
entirely of Irish-Americans and persons sympathetic with and 
committed to the cause of the Sinn Feiners to organize and 
hold its sittings in Washington, our capitol, for the avowed 
purpose of investigating Irish conditions, but for the real 
purpose of circulating and spreading their propaganda among 
our people. What would you think if the British were to al- 

20 


low a similar commission to organize and meet near White 
Hall, or the Houses of Parliament, in London, to investigate 
conditions in Hawaii, or to inquire into the justice of our pro¬ 
tectorate over Cuba? 

In London some years ago I was examining the books in 
an old book store on Fleet street when a curious looking volume 
attracted my attention. I bought it and upon reading it I 
found its contents more curious still. It embraced the rela¬ 
tion of two traditions. One is that the Coronation Stone of 
Great Britain, which for centuries has been a part of the 
Coronation Chair which you see in Westminster Abbey is the 
stone upon which Jacob rested his head when he had his 
dream, and that the present King of Great Britain is a direct 
descendant of the Kings of Israel. The stone is said to have 
been carried to Spain by a daughter of Zedekiah, the last of 
the Kings of Judah, accompanied by the prophet Jeremiah and 
others, and thence by them to Ireland, and thence by one of 
the Scottish chiefs to Scotland, where it became the Corona¬ 
tion Stone of the Kings of Scotland; and thence by King 
Edward I to London, where it became the Coronation Stone of 
the King of England. Every British King and Queen since 
Edward I, except the Roman Catholic Queen, known in history 
as ''Bloody Mary,'’ has been crowned upon that stone. The 
other tradition, more marvelous still, if that be possible, is 
that the lost tribes of Isreal, who failed to cross the river 
Jordan, immigrated across the continent of Europe to Eng¬ 
land and became the ancestors and forbears of the Anglo- 
Saxon race. I have no faith in either of these traditions, but 
I take delight in the belief that as the children of Isreal were 
the chosen people of God, so the two great Anglo-Saxon na¬ 
tions, Great Britain and America, are the nations chosen by 
God to establish throughout the earth the sacred principles of 
our free governments, of our civilization and of our religion. 

I have already obtruded too much on your time and patience 
and yet there are numerous other problems that deeply con¬ 
cern our well being. The inequality of wealth and opportunity, 
the existence of so great a number of swollen fortunes, the ex¬ 
cess-profits tax and other unjust systems of taxation, the ex¬ 
tent of unemployment and idleness, the superabundance of 
crime, the drift from the country to the cities and the prob¬ 
lem of the farmers, illiteracy and the poor, the Japanese ques- 

21 


tion and the negro problem—the last a problem which we of 
the South must always carry—^the problem of two races im¬ 
possible of amalgamation or of social equality living side by 
side, under the same government, a problem, however, which 
we are perfectly competent to solve if left alone. 

The times indeed are full of problems. What are the reme¬ 
dies. They are three, discipline, education and religion. It 
is possible we need more laws, but it is certain that we need 
a better enforcement of the laws we have. Our percentage 
of illiteracy and lack of education is appalling and fraught 
with the gravest dangers; and yet our teachers are not paid 
salaries enough to afford a decent livelihood for themselves 
and their families. No taxation levied for educational pur¬ 
poses is too high. South Carolina has next to the highest 
percentage of illiteracy among the States of the United States, 
and yet we levy nearly the smallest percentage of taxes to re¬ 
lieve this condition. Schools and teachers, however, are not 
the only means of education. The press, newspapers and maga¬ 
zines, are potent influences; and statistics show that more than 
fifteen millions of our citizenship daily attend the theatres 
and moving picture shows. It is by the proper use of these 
means that the masses must be educated—all these with the 
churches must be made the weapons of truth. 

As you pass into the vestibule of the great Lenox Library on 
Fifth Avenue, in the City of New York, you will see chiseled in 
gold on the right column of the entrance to the ante-room these 
words: ''On the infusion of education among the people rest 
the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.” 
Never was truth more surely written. 

It is related that two great financiers were standing on the 
bridge watching the great falls of the Niagara as the water 
rolled from the lake into the gorge nearly two hundred feet 
below, when one said to the other: "This is the greatest un¬ 
developed power in the world.” "Not so,” said the other 
reflecting, "the greatest undeveloped power in the world is the 
human soul.” 

Mr. Roger W. Babson in his book on the Fundamentals of 
Prosperity relates that when he was a guest of the President 
of the Argentine Republic, one day after lunch sitting in the 
sun parlor looking over the river the President asked, reflec¬ 
tively, "Mr. Babson, I have been wondering why South Amer- 

22 


ica with all its great natural advantages is so far behind North 
America notwithstanding South America was settled before 
North America.” Mr. Babson, being a guest, said: **Mr. 
President, what do you think is the reason?” The President 
replied, ‘T have come to this conclusion: South America was 
settled by the Spanish who came to South America in search 
of gold, but North America was settled by the Pilgrim Fathers 
who went there in search of God.” 

In the Scotch Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue in the 
City of New York, I heard the distinguished Scotch pastor 
tell this incident in concluding a masterly sermon. He said 
that on one occasion when crossing the Atlantic becoming rest¬ 
less late one night he went out on the promenade of the 
steamer to walk and meditate. He met another passenger, an 
Ex-President of the United States, who happened to be doing 
the same thing, and the two began to talk of things that mat¬ 
ter. Finally the Ex-President said, “What the world needs 
is an Emperor.” The Scotch preacher was astonished—^think 
of it, here was a great American statesman, an Ex-President 
of the greatest Republic the world has ever known, seriously 
saying that the world needed an Emperor—but the Ex-Presi¬ 
dent continued, “What the world needs is an Emperor and his 
name is Jesus Christ.” 

Writing Utopias and Altrurias, systems of ideal states, has 
been from time immemorial fine intellectual and psychological 
exercise and entertainment. More than four hundred years 
before Christ, nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, Plato, of 
whom Eusebius so beautifully observed, “He alone of all the 
Greeks reached to the vestibule of truth, and stood upon its 
threshold,” gave to the world through dialogues with Socrates 
his ideal Republic as the rule of an aristocracy composed of 
the wisest and best—the very reverse of Bolshevism. Plato 
said there could be no ideal state until kings are philosophers 
and philosophers kings. Early in the sixteenth century Sir 
Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor of England, a “lover of 
liberty, justice, truth and toleration,” gave to the world his 
Utopia, described as the greatest literary production of his 
time. Early in the next century Lord Bacon, also Lord High 
Chancellor of England, described by Pope as the “wisest, 
brightest, meanest of mankind,” published his New Atlantis. 
Some years afterwards in the same century Campanella, the 

23 


Dominican Monk, notwithstanding his seven years of confine¬ 
ment in fifty different prisons, during which he was tortured 20 
times, found diversion in writing and publishing his City of 
the Sun. In the eighteenth century Rousseau, sickly, morbid, 
passionate, ungrateful, immoral, hypocritical and infamous as 
he was, yet said to be "‘the greatest literary genius of his 
age,” found recreation and delight in writing and publishing 
his dream of an ideal government in his Social Contract, said to 
have been the text-book and inspiration of the French Revolu¬ 
tion ; and Socialists of today are still at work in the endeavor 
to conceive and construct an ideal state and hand it over ready¬ 
made as a boon to mankind. 

All these works and others of like kind have proved to be 
fascinating to the mind but impossible of practical application. 
They provide for existence but not for life. God Almighty 
never intended that all men should be equal and that they 
should live together like ants and bees as though controlled by 
instinct. He gave man a mind and soul, with wants and de¬ 
sires, aspirations, hopes and varying strength and energy and 
ability. He put in man the desire to work and acquire and ac¬ 
cumulate ; and He expected him to receive and enjoy rewards 
in proportion to the exercise of his talents. In the parable of 
the talents as related in the Gospel the master said to the 
servant to whom he had given five talents, according to his 
ability, and who had made and brought other five talents, ‘‘Well 
done thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful 
over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; 
enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” And to the servant to 
whom he had given one talent, according to his ability, and 
who had hid his talent and returned it only to his lord, he said, 
“Thou wicked and slothful servant. Take the talent from him 
and give it unto him that hath ten talents; and cast ye the un¬ 
profitable servant into outer darkness; there shall be weeping 
and gnashing of teeth.” 

I deeply deplore the existence and number of swollen for¬ 
tunes in our country. It seems impossible for any man to 
acquire hundreds of millions by fair means, or by the fair 
exercise of his talents. The foundation of such huge fortunes 
must have depended upon corruption or the accidents of chance. 
They are a menace to our well being and some means should be 
devised of limiting and distributing them. 


24 


“Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.” 

And yet, if you were to put all the wealth of the world in a 
pile and divide it equally among mankind that condition would 
not continue for a single day. 

The government of the United States is a practical govern¬ 
ment intended for practical purposes. For years it has been 
used as a model by peoples all over the world seeking to form 
new governments, and after the war the peoples of Europe 
clamored to learn of it. Some months ago I heard a great 
Baptist minister speak in the opera house in Columbia. He 
said that after the war it had been his privilege to make a 
speaking tour over the stricken portions of Europe. He had 
gone over Bulgaria, Roumania, Servia, and even into Russia. 
He asked the people over there what they wanted him to talk 
about and everywhere came back the answer, “Tell us about 
your free government, its institutions, its constitution and 
its laws.” 

The story is told by the Hon. John Barrett that while he 
was Minister to Siam he became very much attached to the 
heir to the throne then a youth in his teens and never let an 
opportunity pass to tell him of our wonderful land of freedom 
and her ideals. Siam, as you know, is an absolute monarchy 
and in a large part of it Buddhism is the prevailing religion. 
The royal family at the time of which I speak entertained a 
belief somewhat similar to the belief in the transmigration of 
souls. They believed that upon the death of a person some¬ 
thing in him similar to the human soul passed from him to 
another human being, and so on and on until at last it passed 
into a perfect being, who having fulfilled all thingis and 
enjoyed all happiness ended that particular chain of lives. In 
the course of events the heir was taken sick and was told he 
had but a few moments to live. He asked to be permi,tted 
to speak to the American Minister alone. His wish was 
granted, and in a weak and dying voice he said, “Sir, if as I 
believe, I am to live again, pray for me as I pray for myself 
that I may become an American citizen.” 

A few years ago Lord Bryce wrote that “the future of the 
United States during the next half century sometimes presents 

25 


itself as a struggle between two forces, the one beneficial, the 
other malign, the one striving to speed the nation to a port 
of safety before the time of trial arrives, the other to retard 
its progress so that the tempest may be upon it before the port 
is reached/^ The writer of a recent magazine writing of the 
present times says, ‘Tt is the kind of situation in which former 
civilizations have gone down.” Lord Macauley predicted that 
the civilization of the United States would be destroyed by law¬ 
lessness engendered within her own institutions. Indeed ‘The 
shadows hang heavy on the hills.” How long will our country 
endure? It is for all of us “to take up arms against a sea 
of troubles and by opposing end them.” Even then how long 
will our civilization last? Other civilizations, ancient and 
modern, have gone down. How long is left for us ? The Chal¬ 
dean Empire collapsed before Cyrus, the Great, who established 
the Persian Empire. It had not lasted a century. The Persian 
Empire went down before Alexander the Great, who sighed 
for more worlds to conquer. It had lasted but two centuries. 
The empire of Alexander was barely established before his un¬ 
timely death, whereupon it was divided among his generals. 
The Roman Empire held her sway for more than five centuries 
and then joined the procession of the ages and fell and disin¬ 
tegrated. The empire founded by that interesting and pic¬ 
turesque figure of world history, Peter the Great, lasted less 
than two and a half centuries. The German Empire appar¬ 
ently so strong and firm lasted less than half a century, because 
it was founded and owed its existence to militarism and the 
principle that might makes right. The Emperors of Russia, 
Germany, Austria, and China, are dead or in exile. Bourbons, 
Bonapartes, Romanovs, Hapsburgs, and Hohenzollerns, former 
kings, potentates and princes, bereft of their thrones, princi¬ 
palities and powers are wanderers on the face of the earth. 
Life in all its tragic incompleteness from the thatched roof of 
the peasant to the palace of the prince has been changed by the 
mighty cataclysm of war and social revolution, never again 
to recur to the conditions of former times. The curtain has 
fallen on a civilization from which it will nevermore be lifted. 
How long will the great republic of the United States endure? 
Who knows? I can only say: 

“And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
winds blew and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it 
was founded upon a rock.” 

26 


:( . 


r 




/ 


ARY 0 


F CONG 


ESS 


0 027 119 810 3 


Press of 


McCAW OF COLUMBIA 
COLUMBIA, S. C. 















